Moe Wagner may have been on the wrong end of some questionable calls for most of the evening. With the game knotted at 60 and under 90 seconds to play, however, he got away with an obvious foul while stealing the ball from VCU's Jonathan Williams.

Wagner, who'd never been able to get into the rhythm of the game, finished a three-point play at the other end, then coolly knocked one down from beyond the arc to put the nail in the coffin. Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman's unnecessary—but consequential, given the game's Michigan -7 betting line—layup just before the buzzer gave the Wolverines an 11-0 run to close out a much-needed win.

That final six-point flurry represented half of Wagner's point total. As you might imagine given that stat, Michigan didn't have a stellar offensive performance, especially as Charles Matthews struggled to stay on the floor in the second half with cramps—and struggled to make free throws (1/6 in the half) when he did.

Michigan didn't have the Matthews-Wagner two-man game going like they did in the first two games in Maui and the halfcourt offense suffered mightily for it. The Wolverines shot 5-for-20 from beyond the arc and nine of their ten turnovers came after halftime. They managed to make up for that, at least for tonight, with a 16-0 edge in fast break points.

While it wasn't pretty, Michigan needed this victory badly to get out of Maui with a 1-1 record against D-I teams and not saddle themselves with potential resumé-hurting losses. After a home tune-up against UC Riverside, they'll face their toughest test of the young season next week when they travel to Chapel Hill. Without more consistent production in the halfcourt, that UNC game could get ugly.

“Working at it. [/looks at SID] Give me the updates. What do I need to know? What’s my man’s name? No. 1 from our defense, he spilled some—Ambry. See, I didn’t even remember his name, so you know he’s not in the gameplan.”

Is this a double fake kind of thing?

“Alright, here we go.”

Is Brandon cleared for any kind of activity yet?

“He’s progressively getting better. He’s still in the protocol and we’ll know—it’s on an hour-to-hour and day-to-day basis where he stands, but, you know, he seems to be a lot better than what he was after Saturday.”

Is there a cutoff time where if he’s not cleared by a certain point then he won’t play Saturday?

“That’s coach Harbaugh’s decision.”

Any update on Wilton?

“Wilton, he’s been back out on the practice field and he’s looked good. Once again, that’s the head coach’s decision.”

Is it still a red jersey [non-contact] thing for Wilton?

“Yes.”

If it is John that has to play on Saturday, how do you feel that he’s—do you feel that he’ll be ready for that challenge?

“Yeah, I think he’ll be ready. It’s not like this is his first time playing. We’ve still got a lot of practice in front of us and it’s important that we go out and we have a few good days of practice and we’ll see where we stand.”

Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We are Borg. We have existed for hundreds of years, marching inexorably forward at a rate sufficient for first downs, passing only in conditions of peak efficiency as calculated by a quotient of run-pass-optimization. We have scored 200 touchdowns, accumulated 10,000 yards, won 35 of 41 games started.

Our ultimate goal is achieving perfection; to that end we have by maximum face-saving means finally removed creatively challenged Ed Warinner from our Collective, and assimilated the diabolical and technological distinctiveness of former Indiana head coach Kevin Wilson to our own. His tempo, motion, and deep passing concepts have been adapted to serve us as we plod forward at optimal zombie efficiency.

I observed this collection of cybernetic organisms versus Iowa and Michigan State, two good defenses that lean on their cornerbacks. They’re a threat.

------------------------------

Personnel:

You know these guys. QB JT Barrett is trying to become the first quarterback in this rivalry to win four straight since Rick Leach ever. He remains what he is, an excellent runner with total command of an offense designed around his ability to get every inch (and sometimes more) available to him, and a meh passer. RB JK Dobbins is a low bugger who Wally Pipp’d returning starter RB Mike Weber. Dobbins has more speed and moves his feet so quickly he tends to squirt through no holes all the time. Weber is squatter, slower, and the better blocker.

Pay no attention to which receivers are “starting” because they rotate all of them often, though H-receiver (their term for slot) Parris Campbell is usually in. There’s a lot of athleticism, but all the outside guys still run routes like Michigan’s freshmen, i.e. badly. TE Marcus Baugh is rounding into a good blocker; as a receiver he’s more of a catch-and-run dude than a matchup problem.

The genetically perfect offensive line has improved despite losing a decent new starter at one of the guard spots. C Billy Price has been a starter since their national championship season. Now at center, most of the offense goes through him. LT Jamarco Jones didn’t impress me as much as I thought he would—he’s more of a finesse guy than a mauler, but he’s not long enough to translate that to elite pass protection; he’s on the border. RG Michael Jordan took over Price’s old job and is better at being a large object in the way than the more complicated stuff he was doing last year. RT Isaiah Prince had a great Penn State game and has improved as a pass protector, however he’s still quite the sieve. LG Demetrius Knox was the projected starter last offseason so replacing injured Branden Bowen with him hasn’t hurt them. I’m anxious to see what they’re like next year without Price and Jones.

Glorified scrimmage
Would be the game they get hot
Hot damn, Charles Matthews

Fine, some bullets:

But for real, of all the games for three-point luck to even out. Michigan went a scorching 15-for-28 from beyond the arc. Chaminade canned a couple fluky ones and still only made 5-of-22.

Anyway, Charles Matthews! Even against D-II competition, this is a quite a stat line for a guy who also had a huge game last night: 22 points on perfect 8-for-8 shooting, ten rebounds, four assists, two turnovers, three blocks, and two steals in 29 minutes. Matthews played with every bit of effort and skill that stat line suggests.

Duncan Robinson found his shot. 14 points, 4-for-9 from beyond the arc, unfair in transition. A nice bounceback after a rough go against LSU.

Eli Brooks got his first start. Brooks had a nice start with a catch-and-shoot three and a slick pick-and-roll assist, but his effectiveness didn't last; he went 1-for-4 with one assist and a turnover the rest of the way. Jaaron Simmons, the next point guard to get in, nearly put up an 11-minute trillion. Zavier Simpson was the best PG tonight but didn't exactly stand out.

Jordan Poole got a longer look. Poole looked good in his first extended action, doing what he's supposed to do: get buckets. He needed only nine minutes to score ten points, drilling two of his three shots from downtown. While he's got a long way to go on defense, he should cut into Ibi Watson's minutes if he keeps hitting jumpers.

Rahk, sharing. For the fourth straight game, Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman scored double-digit points with at least four assists. He's turned the ball over just once in that four-game span, an especially remarkable feat considering how often he drives into traffic. That's a big development with the point guards struggling to produce.

Rebounding: not great. Outside of Matthews, the team didn't rebound well. Michigan had only three offensive boards (Jon Teske grabbed the third) before Austin Davis had three on his lonesome in the late going. Chaminade, meanwhile, pulled down 16 of their 39 missed shots (41%). After doing well on the boards early on, this didn't look like nearly as good an effort from Moe Wagner on first viewing.

Sponsor Note. Had ol' Richard Hoeg on the podcast a couple weeks back, whereupon he both gave us an excellent Gimmicky Top Five topic and executed it well. It was about restoring the credibility of the NCAA with some rule changes, and he impressed with the depth of his thought. "Probity," I thought. "This person would be a good lawyer to have." And he can be your lawyer too, if you're starting up a small business and have a need for founding documents, contracts, and the like.

Also he had no preference between Rich, Richard, Rick, Ricky, and Dick, so if you're picky about names that's five options right there.

I mean, how ridiculous are these? Perhaps it was the fact that it was 4 AM and I had long since given up on falling back asleep, but all I could do when I first saw these was laugh. I was scrolling through a collection of photos from The Michigan Daily, and juxtaposed against campus protests and national conventions they became even more absurd. This feeling of delight and joy quickly moved into deep curiosity. I suddenly had to know everything I could about the story behind these pictures.

Someone had, presumably intentionally, released several turkeys for students to catch in the muddied Markley courtyard. Why? Who sponsored it? Whose idea was it? How many students participated? Where did they get the turkeys from? Was this an annual event?

Some 30 students…celebrated Thanksgiving early yesterday with an Interhouse Assembly-sponsored turkey hunt in the Markley courtyard. Winners were awarded four complementary Thanksgiving dinners – turkey of course – and a splendid time was had by all. – The Michigan Daily, 11/18/1967

From the Bentley Library I knew that both photos were taken by student photographer James Forsyth of The Michigan Daily. Scrolling through several years worth of microfilm turned up an advertisement on November 15th (at right) and a front page photo and description (quoted above) on November 18th. I found no other record in the five years before or after, leading me to believe this was a one-off event.

Perhaps one of the descendants of these unfortunate fowls became the Insane Killer North Campus Turkey of 2015, thus restoring his family honor. The moral of the story is that turkeys should be loosed upon campus more frequently than once every 48 years.

Going long. There have been rumblings about Michigan doing something to tamp down the Harbaugh Goes Somewhere rumors for a year or so now, and... uh...

What that would look like is unknown. How much oomph it would have depends on the buyout, and all that, but since the yammering about Harbaugh's job is invariably done by dim bulbs a LIFETIME CONTRACT(!!!) should be fairly effective at silencing the noise even if it isn't absolutely ironclad. Those people ain't reading the fine print.

The trick to throwing the ball deep down the middle past all eleven defenders is (a) find a way to bring up the defense’s deepest defenders so you can throw the post behind them and (b) if those defenders stay deep, don’t throw the post. The way to accomplish both of those goals is to construct a sound concept around the deep post that can provide answers versus a variety of coverages — and strike like lightning whenever the opportunity is right. And for my money, there’s no better way of accomplishing those goals than the Mills concept.

...

The basics of the play are straightforward:

the outside receiver runs a post route, breaking towards the near goalpost (hence the name “post”) somewhere between 12 and 15 yards;

the inside receiver runs to a depth of 10 to 12 yards and either breaks inside (known as a “dig” or “square-in”) or runs a hook or curl back to the quarterback;

the backside receiver runs some sort of route to draw away the coverage, such a corner route, a fade or “go” route or a hook; and

the remaining eligible receivers (runningbacks, tight-ends or slot receivers) run underneath routes to be checkdown options if the defense covers everyone else.

Together, the play is typically run with play-action to further pull up the linebackers and safeties. And, as the Fun ‘n Gun heyday era clips below show, Mills could be as beautiful as it was devastating.

Michigan's currently getting DPJ open by being very very bad at passing, but if you see DPJ on a post while a TE runs a dig or 12 yard hitch under him, that's Mills.

Before the redshirt freshman went down with an injury on Saturday, he was excelling when Wisconsin would bring pressure, hitting plays to Donovan Peoples-Jones and Zach Gentry down the field among others and had a strong feel for the pocket throughout the game.

By comparison? John O'Korn went 0-5 in similar situations and looked like he has most of the season when the pressure starts to collapse the pocket a bit.

Small sample sizes but the larger picture looks much the same unless O'Korn is able to break the pocket.

S&P+ projected Michigan to win, on average, about 8.9 games in 2017. If I had taken returning starting quarterback Wilton Speight — lost for the season with injury back in September — out of the equation, their projected wins probably would have fallen to about 8.5.

They are currently 8-3 following a loss to Wisconsin, and they will probably be 8-4 after Ohio State leaves town this coming Saturday evening.

Oh, the horror. Oh, the crushing disappointment.

When I wrote, “From a narrative perspective, though, 2017 will be interesting,” this is almost exactly what I meant. When we peer into the future, we can stomach some disappointments in the name of long-term success. When we’re living through those disappointments in the present tense, however, it feels like the sky is falling.

The defense is performing almost exactly as projected; Michigan was projected fifth in Def. S&P+ and is eighth. The offense has been a bit worse than expected (projected 40th, currently 69th), and Speight’s injury hasn’t been the only cause. But it hasn’t helped, and it probably isn’t a coincidence that the Wolverines’ hopes of an upset in Madison ended virtually the moment that emerging QB Brandon Petersalso went down.

Good luck, Mr. Connelly. Let's just check the ol' comments to see how it's going. And...

Do we really expect Michigan fans to want to hear context when they're about to be 1-5 in 3 years vs MSU and Ohio State?

It’s been a slow season when it comes to the addition of new phrases to Harbaugh’s vernacular, but one thing he’s mentioned a few times this season that has stuck with me is one’s “football sensibilities.” This is very much a feel thing, and it’s the reason I picked this play. Wisconsin blocks this as well as they can; there’s a Mack-truck-sized lane for the back with one guy to shake. Each guy has an opportunity; someone will succeed, someone will fail. It’s binary. It’s brutal. It’s decisive. That appeals to my football sensibilities.

What were you expecting from them at that point?

“I had a read and I seen the fullback come to my side off a little short motion, and then I just read off the fullback and I tried to get down to the line of scrimmage as fast as I could. So as soon as I came down there and read the fullback’s block I tried to fit the hole as fast as I could and get my arms on the running back and tried to get him down as fast as I could, so that was pretty much my read on that play.”

It was 2nd-and-6 at that point, so pretty much everything’s available to them. Were they tipping anything as far as run or pass goes?

“Oh yeah. We seen how heavy their hands were on the ground with the linemen, and the D-line gives the linebackers the checks and the linebackers give us the check and we read that really well and I came down and executed the play really well.”

The receiver on the outside was running a drag. Did you see him and have to get underneath him first or was he not really an issue?

“On that play I did not. Josh Metellus was in the back helping the corner with that coverage.”

You were talking about the fullback earlier. Once he motions over, you basically know where the play’s going to go?

“Yeah, yeah. Watched film on them all week and saw that type of motion. They had more plays out of that type of motion, but I was very confident on that play. Got down there and trusted my gut feeling and made the play.”

That hole opened up perfectly for you to make the tackle, but were you expecting, based on what you’d watched on film, the back to bounce?

“I was expecting him to hit the hole harder, I thought, a little bit at me. I didn’t expect him to bounce it back inside, which he tried to do, and then I just tried to trace it back and get my arms on him, which I did. I did expect him to hit that hole. Like you said, it was wide open, and I tried to get down there as fast as I could to close it because, you know, once it’s not closed you know he has room and he’s a good back. He can make you miss, so I just tried to get down there as fast as I could.”

So when he decided to bounce he saw that you were in the hole and there was nowhere else to go and last minute he decided to cut?

“Yeah, I don’t know what he seen but yeah, I think that might have been the reason why. Me getting down there so fast, he wanted to cut it back. So, like I said, I just tried to get down there and just fill the hole as fast as I could.”

Technique-wise, what’s most important when you’ve got pretty much a free hit like that?

“You just want to bring your feet and shoulders to the tackle. When you make contact you want to keep your feet going, especially with a back like that. He’s big, and once he gets contact he’s going to keep his feet moving, so you want to get your body on his body and keep your feet moving and just wait for your guys to get there to finish it off.”